The Sea of Stars
by pagerunner
Summary: After Thane's death, Kaidan rejoins the crew to find that Shepard is still privately mourning - and that despite the distance that's grown between them, he has to help her in any way he can. Shepard/Thane and Shepard/Kaidan relationships, set during the course of ME3.


Shepard's door was open when Kaidan arrived, and the dim, eerie blue of her lights spilled out into the corridor.

Caution and instinct muted his steps. It was late, and he knew he was intruding, yet he felt that he had to come. Since returning to the Normandy, he'd felt that something, despite her assurances, was unsettled with her - that she wasn't quite… present, in the way he'd known her to be.

That ever since the coup, something he couldn't even define about her had gone.

There was no sound from her cabin, no apparent reason for the open door. Kaidan stepped closer, angling himself to peer inside. He could see her silhouette, dark and shadowed against the glow of the fish tank; she was standing with one arm braced against the glass and her forehead bowed against it, the other hand cradling a small book to her chest. And she was whispering something. Only a few words made it through - names from a language he'd never known.

_Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths…._

He stepped closer, just inside the door. Shepard, perhaps glimpsing him in her peripheral vision, lifted her head to stare.

Her expression didn't hide anything. Shepard was usually so composed, so professional, and while he knew - better than almost anyone, or so he'd believed - that she felt things with extraordinary depth, she very seldom showed it. Now, in this strange light… she just looked haunted. Shaken.

Alone.

"Shepard," he said softly.

She didn't move, not at first. Then her gaze slanted aside, looking past him to some indeterminate point. Her expression had gone closed again.

She did not, however, let go of that book.

"Kaidan," she said. She reached for another word, then stopped. He was the first one to speak again.

"I've caught you at a bad time."

"No. That's… all right. I'm just -"

She looked around. She was dressed for bed, in a light tanktop and shorts, but she hadn't gotten as far as properly putting away her fatigues. She'd also left a mess of documents around, and tellingly, two empty bottles. The bed was unmade, as if she'd shoved herself abruptly out of it. Shepard sighed and rubbed her eyes.

"Scattered," she finished, and dear God, Kaidan thought, she sounded so tired.

"Can I come in?"

She still wasn't looking at him, but she waved him in regardless. Kaidan shut the door behind him, and watched as she walked to her desk. She was beginning to straighten out the mess. He wanted to stop her, do it himself, but he also wanted to wait - to give her a chance to explain. Pushing her wouldn't help, not like this. She'd just shut him down.

Much like he'd shut _her _down, he knew, with all his accusations and the ongoing suspicion. He sighed.

"Shepard, I just… wanted to talk. Clear the air." He watched her, while she kept holding that book in one hand and working only with the other. "About what went down on the Citadel."

"We've talked about that," she said quietly. "About you and me, and…."

"I know. It's not that."

She'd lifted a glass from the table, but paused. She tilted it back and forth in midair, watching the thin line of amber liquid as it moved. Then she put it to her lips and downed it in one decisive gulp. Kaidan waited as she set down the glass and turned sharply back to him.

"What's on your mind, Kaidan?"

He nodded at her and asked gently, "What's that book?"

She looked down, seeming as if she'd forgotten she was carrying anything. Her thumb tapped lightly against it once, then rubbed its edge. Finally she went still.

"I guess we do need to talk," she said.

She looked down at the things she'd sorted, made a face, and shoved them aside. A few of them spilled onto the floor, but she let it go. Instead, she sat on the desk, hooked one foot around the chair, and pushed it across the floor towards him. Kaidan caught it with one hand. "Take a seat," she told him.

He did. Shepard had lowered the book into her lap, braced lightly between both hands. She was still looking at it instead of him.

"I was dreaming," she said, coming at her explanation obliquely. "About dying. You'd be surprised how often that happens. Or maybe you wouldn't."

She did meet his eyes then, and he almost wished she hadn't. She looked something other than haunted now; she was eerily focused, on something he doubted he wanted to see.

"I grew up on ships, Kaidan. We went through… so many drills. What happens in case of mechanical failure. Power loss. Fire, explosions, damage. Depressurization. Everyone does. Sometimes, though, it's not… enough." She rubbed her forehead. "When I was 12 I moved off the Nebula and onto the Mendelsohn. Turned out it was three weeks before the accident that destroyed Neb's Module 9 and spaced six people. Two of my friends died. Did I ever tell you about that?"

"No," Kaidan said. He felt chilled. Memories of the first Normandy's destruction were spinning through his head now - images of Shepard cast adrift, utterly lost.

"I had nightmares about that for a while. Inevitable, I guess. All the modules look the same, so I could imagine it so easily. I kept dreaming about my wall cracking and exploding out and everything… dying." She shook her head. "It was so vivid. And so I thought I'd know what it would feel like. Until, of course, it actually happened."

Kaidan swore faintly under his breath. His chest felt hollow. "Shepard, I…."

"Dying like that…" she went on, as if she hadn't heard him. "It was worse than I'd ever imagined. The dreams… they came back after that. They were relentless."

"I wish I'd known."

"You didn't give me much of a chance to say."

The rebuke was sharp. Kaidan wanted to reply, but he knew, ultimately, he'd kind of deserved that.

"I didn't have anyone to tell, really." A muscle in Shepard's cheek twitched as she turned aside. "Who the hell was I going to confide in? Miranda, the perfect loyal operative, in charge of all the mad scientists who brought me back? Jacob? The Illusive Man?" Her mouth twisted. "Joker'd been through enough already. And Garrus… he got it, a little, but it wouldn't have been right to pile everything on him, not then. Besides, I was still supposed to be the commander. The fearless fucking leader. In the end…." She looked at the book again. "The only one I really told all this to was Thane."

Something twisted low in Kaidan's stomach. He should have known it would be coming around to this. He just wished he knew exactly how he felt about it. It wasn't jealousy, not anymore. It was just… sadness, and an odd sort of guilt.

"We talked," she said, "about everything. The war, philosophy, moral debates…." She smiled faintly. "A few things much more ridiculous. And of course we talked about each other. Our pasts, our secrets, our beliefs. Our dreams. There was something about him that always made it feel so safe. And it helped. But without him…."

She trailed off again, fighting for words.

"I can't sleep, Kaidan," she said. "I just… I can't sleep."

"You mean…. you're dreaming again."

"I keep hearing him," she said wearily. "Hearing everyone I've lost. I'm just… unanchored. Adrift again. Airless. Drowning in it. And when I wake up I'm staring through that window at the stars and I'm _still _drowning." She gave a humorless laugh. "Sometimes I swear Cerberus put that skylight in to fuck with me."

"Probably," Kaidan said roughly, trying to smile. "I wouldn't put anything past them."

"I know."

She was too tired to make that an accusation. She merely said it, and raked her hair back. She took a deep breath.

"Thane used to tell me what he believed about death and the afterlife. He spoke of that… crossing... as the sea. I was never really sure if I found that metaphor comforting, considering, but… he said I likely had trouble because I'd been taken from it. Pulled back, forcibly, through turbulent waters. I guess that could disturb anyone."

Kaidan wasn't sure how to ask this, so he came at it plainly: "Were you praying, when I got here?"

"Yes."

"I never thought you were particularly religious…."

"I wasn't," she said softly. "_Especially _after coming back, I wasn't. But Thane believed so completely. He didn't have anyone to convince, he didn't have anything to prove… he just _was._ And when I was with him I wanted it to be true. For his sake more than anything… and yeah, maybe a little for mine."

Thane, Kaidan slowly remembered, had known he was dying all along. He'd said as much in the hospital. They'd only spoken briefly; Kaidan was in poor condition for it, and Thane perhaps even more so, his breath rasping and his body weak. Yet there'd been a _presence _about the man, something calm and centered, something that spoke of a quiet grace. Kaidan thought he had some small idea of what Shepard meant.

"Even after that coup went so wrong," Shepard said, with a momentary flash of anger in her voice, "he still went peacefully, in the end. I was trying to hold to that. But I dreamed tonight I'd tried to follow him across the sea. I still don't know if I was trying to save him, or…"

Kaidan looked at her sharply. She broke off, however, before admitting anything else.

"Either way, I was wrong. The dream knew I was wrong. I knew it. I lost my bearings. Pretty soon I lost everything. I got washed under by the waves again and I couldn't find my way out. And it was like... it was just like."

Kaidan breathed out her name. Shepard still wouldn't look at him.

"I can't be like this," she said. "He wouldn't want this. I just can't make it stop."

Kaidan hesitated, then got out of his chair. "Come on," he said. "Let's sit somewhere more comfortable, okay?"

It took her a minute, but she nodded faintly and followed him.

Kaidan picked her clothes up off the sofa, and gestured for her to take a seat while he folded them. They felt so familiar beneath his fingertips, smelled familiar when he accidentally lifted them a little too close to his face. He hoped she didn't notice.

He sighed, then, and set them aside. He took his own seat nearby, but not too near.

In the end he had to just come out and say it.

"You know, you said you hadn't talked about those dreams with anyone else. You haven't talked to anyone about Thane, either, not that I've heard. But I can tell you've been grieving." He glanced aside. "I wasn't sure this should be coming from me. Still…."

She eyed him, from beneath a fall of tangled red hair that looked oddly dark in this light.

"If I still know you at all, and I think I do, I know you need someone who can listen to you as a person, not just the Commander, after something like this. I didn't want you to be alone. And you'll go and voluntarily bottle all this up - you said so yourself - so…."

"You decided you had to give me a push."

"I care about you, Shepard," he said. "I want to help if I can. After all, this may sound… _insane…._ to say this to you, but… but I know what it's like, losing someone I love."

He knew it was risky saying as much. Shepard had as many reasons to be angry about this as understanding. But she only watched him, her eyes glinting oddly - like _he _was the ghost now, a memory from some other life.

"You mean me," she said.

"Of course I mean you. You were _dead, _Shepard. What do you think it felt like?"

Her head tilted a little to one side, still studying him. Her voice sounded strange. "How did you get through it?"

Kaidan propped his elbow on the back of the sofa. If he stretched out his arm from here, he could touch her. But he leaned against his hand instead.

"There were a lot of… really well-meaning people." Kaidan's smile was wry. "Expensive Alliance therapists who were trying to pretend _not _to be therapists. You know how it goes with re-orientation." He shrugged. "Everyone seemed to think it would be better for me to get back to work. I thought so too. But then things would pull me off course. One day it would be your face on the news, or you'd come up in mission reports, or… it would just be the way people treated me, knowing I'd been with you. They always had to let me know they were sorry. And… I guess I was kind of like you. I didn't want to talk about it either. Not with them."

She heard the qualifier. "Was there somebody else, then?"

"Yeah." He took a minute to say it. "It was Ashley."

Shepard sat silent. Kaidan laughed to himself, a quiet and self-deprecating sound.

"I know. Call me crazy. I was having imaginary conversations with a dead woman. But I just kept thinking that if anyone would get it, would understand the choice that made you save me… again…."

He could hear the familiar old, ravaged guilt in his voice, the pain and loss that had never quite left him, either. But he imagined Ashley glaring at him. He steadied himself.

"It would be her," he finished.

Shepard rubbed her mouth, thinking things over.

"Some days it was just me talking to the dark," he admitted. He said nothing about his own empty bottles, or the other assorted moments, not the good ones, when he'd faltered. "But some days, when I needed it most… I could practically _hear _her."

"So," Shepard murmured. "What did she tell you?"

"She knocked me on my ass a few times. Said to stop feeling guilty and sorry for myself, to get up and do some good for the galaxy… because you'd want me to. She'd want me to. And that if I came back to myself and stopped… well… drowning in it… that I'd want it, too."

Shepard cracked a crooked smile. "Yeah. Sounds like her."

"So I picked myself up and did the next thing. And the next thing. And the missions were worth believing in. After a while… I got by."

"Good thing, too," Shepard said softly. "You were doing good work."

"So were you, once you were back in the game. I didn't understand at the time. I'm still sorry for that." He shook his head. "And after I heard all your team had been through - I wished I could have been there with you. But… I don't know. Maybe it's better that I wasn't."

"Kaidan…."

"You found good people. You always do. You did what I don't think anyone else could have. And Thane was... he was what you needed. I'm glad he was with you."

"Are you?" she said, sounding strangely wistful. "Really?"

He tilted a smile at her. "Well. Like I said. I'm always going to wish it had been me. But… I know he was worthy of you."

"I wouldn't put it quite like that," she said softly. "I'm always going to be trying to be worthy of him."

Kaidan felt that strange, sorrowful twinge again, but he held it down, and reached out for her instead. She tensed when his hand met hers, and she didn't quite look at him, but she didn't pull away, either. After a minute, she twined her fingers through his and held on.

Kaidan lost track of how long they sat like that, saying nothing. He wondered what she was thinking. He missed the days when he didn't have to wonder.

But at least she hadn't pulled away.

"You still haven't told me what that book is," he said gently, taking the risk.

"I guess I haven't." She blinked her eyes clear. "Sorry…."

"It's all right."

She began hesitantly. "It's… a prayer book. Kolyat and I read from it at Thane's bedside, and he wanted to give it to me, after. I tried to tell him no - it meant so much to his family - but… he said he already remembered it all." Half a smile crossed her face. "He thought I ought to keep it. Eventually I told him yes."

"And so that prayer you were saying…."

"It was from Thane's last words for me. He wrote them in here. It was a prayer to Kalahira… goddess of oceans and the afterlife. After the kinds of dreams I've been having… everything… I thought if anyone would understand…."

Her smile was so sad that it made Kaidan's heart hurt.

"It would be her," she whispered.

She did let go then, although gently. Kaidan watched her cradle the book again. There was something in her eyes that he didn't recognize, and it made him re-evaluate a few things. He'd been thinking something had gone from her. Maybe, he thought, he'd had it backwards.

"Someday I hope you can tell me more about that," he said softly.

"I… think I do too." She took her time in continuing, but finally she glanced back up at him. "I want you back in my life, Kaidan. And this is part of it now. Thane… all of it. It's just complicated. I'm not trying to shut you out, or not explain. It may just take some time."

"I understand."

"I know you do."

Kaidan leaned forward, and softly took her face between his hands. He kissed her on the forehead, feeling the way her breath hitched, and then how her body, slowly but surely, gentled under his touch. He knew that feeling. He wanted so badly to hold her.

But for now, he knew this would be enough.

"You need to try to get some sleep," he said when he withdrew. Shepard nodded. Slowly she got to her feet, and Kaidan walked her the rest of the way to the bed. On the way, with a quick biotic tug, he straightened the blankets for her; Shepard smiled a little when he did, as if she'd noticed. Of course she would. She didn't say anything about it, though. She just put the book down on the bedside table, squaring it absently into what must have been its permanent position, and then sat on the bed. She tucked her legs beneath her and touched the neatly folded sheets.

"Thank you, Kaidan," she said.

"Of course," he murmured. "I'll let you rest."

She didn't say anything else as he turned to go. But then suddenly there was a touch on his wrist. Kaidan swiveled around, frowning slightly.

This time, he recognized the look in her eyes a little better.

"Could you stay?" she said. "Nearby, I mean. Until I fall asleep." A tiny smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. "Just in case."

He stood very still while he took that in, and tried to decide what he dared do. Finally another faint blue light ebbed out from his fingertips, and the blankets tugged themselves the rest of the way over her. Then he found a nearby chair, and settled in.

"Just in case," he agreed.

Shepard nodded. After everything she'd said, he half expected her to turn aside, keep her eyes averted, but she stretched out on her back. She was staring straight up - through the window, into the endless sea of stars that surrounded them.

Her lips moved once, as if in one last prayer he couldn't hear, but had begun, just barely, to understand.

And then her eyes closed, and he stayed to watch over her until deep space's meaningless measure of night and day finally turned on into morning.


End file.
